Scooter style: Alfred’s Vespa PX 200 All Mod Cons Before there was bling, there was Mod
Words by PETE CALLAGHAN, photography by LOU MARTIN & JEREMY BOWDLER Alfred Primerano's Mod-style Vespa PX 200 is testament to both the nostalgic pulling power of scooters, and the evergreen attraction of the Mod style cult. For 42-year-old Alfred, a rider since the age of 15, it was a fond remembrance of his teenage years back in Italy that provided the starting point for this particular scootering adventure.
"Two of my mates and I had decided to go out and buy ourselves some Italian scooters, just for a taste of nostalgia," he recalled. “We had already been through the sports bike thing, which was soon followed by the cruiser thing with us all having Harley-Davidsons."
"It was all fun, but somehow we always ended up talking about scooters and how practical and fun they were, and how you could just hop on them for no other reason than just to go and buy a loaf of bread."
 "One day one of my mates turned up with a brand-new PX 200, so I asked him ‘Mate, who restored that for you as they haven’t made these things since I was a teenager?'."
"When he told me it was brand-spankers I was gobsmacked as I actually remember being in Italy when the PX was first launched, and I couldn’t believe they were still being made."
 "Anyway, we finished our coffee and he started up the scoot and then it hit me – the smell of two-stroke exhaust. My God, it was that power of nostalgia. Even my wife Kitty asked me if I was okay because I had a strange look on my face. I knew from then that I had to have a PX no matter what."
With Fate's trump card on the table, Alfred’s mission was clear. A window shopping expedition at Scooteria in Sydney revealed a white PX 200 in a corner of the showroom and the acquisition was completed the very next day.
Rewind back a short time and the second phase of Alfred’s scoot down memory lane also begins to crystallise.
"A couple of weeks prior to my purchase of the PX, I became a member of the Sydney City Scooter Club and enjoyed many a ride and function with them, one of them being a cinema screening of the scooter cult movie Quadrophenia."
"Well blow me over, as soon as I saw all those Mod-styled scooters I knew exactly what road I was going to take, so after asking some club members for some direction as to where to get parts they put me in touch with young Nate, the owner of The Hive scooter store, who was a fountain of info and enthusiasm."
"At just about the same time a new SCSC member turned up from the UK on a Mod-inspired Lambretta. He was John Martinez, A.K.A. Johnny Lambretta, who also gave me many pointers, along with a few highly prized genuine Sixties lights and ornaments.”
The meeting with Johnny Lambretta was significant in more ways than one. Not only did it help Alfred complete his PX project, but it also spurred the foundation of a business venture between the two enthusiasts: Australian Scooterparts www.scooterparts.com.au , which supplies Vespa and Lambretta parts and accessories to a burgeoning market.
Lashings of chrome, lights and mirrors aside, the PX 200 is mechanically the same as it left the Piaggio factory – with the exception of a Sterling Scooterparts stainless steel performance exhaust system, one of the many products that Alfred and John import.
More importantly, it’s one man’s tribute to his youth, to the rich social and cultural legacy of the Mod years, and to the many friends he’s met along the way. As published in TW SCOOTER MAGAZINE - 22/03/2006
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